DRAGONFLY Trimarans User Forum

I have a Dragonfly 800. (1989 from canada)
My understanding is that I should be able to get to 35 degrees to either side of the wind (70Degrees, 90 for most boats) Right now, when I look at my gps track, I'm only getting a course difference between tacks of about 160 degrees before I'm luffing and going into irons. Any ideas? Any thoughts? Sell the boat and buy a bicyclejavascript:emoticon('')?
Thanks

There are a bunch of variables,
Sail condition, stretched?
Sailing ability. How good are you, really?
Are you sailing against a tidal or other current?
Boat's bottom condition. You can't point with a garden under there.
How much wind? Are you reefed for conditions?
If it's light wind, you generally can't point as high unless you pay a lot of attention to sail tuning. Halyard tension, outhauls etc.

Whole books have been written about this stuff.

I don't think a True Wind Angle of 35 is a realistic expectation.
A tacking angle of 90 degrees, TWA =45 degrees, is more likely (quite neat, actually). This will result in an Apparent Wind Angle of 30-35 deg. Tacking angle should be judged by compass, not GPS.

TWA of 45 degrees/ tacking angle of 90 degrees does not include drift. When watching a GPS track like you do, drift comes into play. Which might result in a course over ground angle of 110+.

160 degrees seems a bit much though, it would take ages to reach an upwind destination.

Is your centreboard fully down?
Mike Paterson
Df1000 Champus

I agree with Ipe;- I have a 920, and get 90 deg between tacks on the compass.

Same here. In halfway decent conditions, 90 degree tacks is no problem.
I mentioned current because I deal with quite a lot of it living at the North end of Puget Sound. In light wind and a lot of current, it's possible to sail closehauled, tack and do 180 degrees or worse!

I'll also agree with the 90 degree, any higher and you will slow very significantly.
Couple things to check, Daggerboard fully down, mainsail out haul kind of tight, mainsail cunningham tight, genoa lead car back, and barberhauler released (inboard).

Do you have a lot of weather helm? How is your mast rake.....

Ted

Hi Matt
I’m sailing one DF800 too. It makes a tacking angle of 90 degrees in perfect conditions – measured by GPS. But that is in perfect conditions. This summer we actually did 70-80 degrees one day. I have not figured out what I did right that time. Most of the time we make 110 degrees.
The angle to the wind makes quite a difference in speed. Often a better tactic is to go for speed. I usually go 10 degrees less than those I’m trying to overturn. That angel gives more speed . You need some other boats to compare with – that is the only way to figure out if you are doing right or not. So the angel by itself is not interesting. Angel and speed is interesting. If the surface always was the same this would be an easy trigometrical problem – but the stopping force of waves is different – so try to get a feeling for the best angel in different conditions.
The GPS gives you very accurate data – test different sheeting – different relation between main and jib etc. There are quite a lot of things to change. Remember the angel is not interesting – it is first to target that counts.
Christian

Forgot to mention one other thing to check, should do this first!
Is your rig balanced? Get a Loos gauge and check the diamond wires to be equal tension, check the shrouds and backstays for equal tension. If it is all equal or real close, go from there.

Thanks
Ted

Also check jib halyard. If there is not enough tension on the jib luff you will be forced to sail lower to prevent jib backwinding and luffing.

Thanks for all the quick responses. Alll good ideas. Hope to try some out saturday (9-4-10).
Will let everyone know